


Brothers

by strollingamongbooks



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Autistic Sherlock, Childhood, Gen, Holmes Brothers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Meta, Orphanage, Protective Mycroft, Season/Series 04, possibly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 14:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9128803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strollingamongbooks/pseuds/strollingamongbooks
Summary: This was inspired by the part of the trailer for series four in which Mycroft is standing in front of an older, burning building and by the part that showed people sitting around a conference table, attached to I.V.s.  I used to write fan fiction in the 90s and into the early 2000s.  This idea wouldn't go away, so I'm back.  I love reading fan theory and meta.  This series is going to be so exciting...and rip our guts out, sounds like.  To me, this sort of background explains a lot about Mycroft's overprotectiveness, about both brothers' issues with food (one having to control binging and one having to remember to eat), the experimentation with drugs, the distancing from emotion, etc.Sorry for the rambling...Proper summary:  Mycroft and Sherlock are brothers, in every way that counts except blood.  It isn't something they talk about, their early days at the orphanage.  After all, they were still relatively young when the Holmes showed up and adopted them.  What came before doesn't matter anymore.  It really doesn't.  They've locked it away in their mind palaces, at least until Culverton Smith showed up.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Might be triggering for those that suffered child abuse or those for whom childhood contained traumatic experiences, I suppose. Take care. Please be aware I tried to be true to my characters and their situations without being too graphic. I hope I succeeded.
> 
> Be gentle. I haven't written fan fiction in a long time. Unbetaed. Let me know if you see any glaring mistakes.

His first memory is pain. Pain and shouting and then a beam of light backed by a tall, whip-thin silhouette. His memories of this time are not complete, but he knows that this was the moment that changed everything. 

The big boys didn’t care he was only little. The big boys didn’t want him touching their stash of food and they were going to teach him a lesson. They didn’t like him anyway. William spent most of his time sitting on his bed, staring at people and rocking. Sometimes he would curl up under his bed. No one bothered William and William bothered no one. He didn’t even remember if anything had ever happened to him before he was in The House. Was there something other than The House? The children would go outside every day and then William would sit under a tree instead. But, really, Outside was just another room of The House to William.  
Mikey was older than him and tall and thin and tough and serious. He had crazy, curly, dark red hair and a frown that made all the big boys run away and stop hurting William. He protected William and gave him extra pieces of his bread at meal times. He didn’t try to make William talk or say mean things to him when he sat on his bed and rocked back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes Mikey would sit next to him and tell him things. Mikey always had the best things to tell.  
After one time when Big People came to visit to pick one of them to take home, Mikey got to leave The House and go not only Outside, but into the Real World. William always thought of all these places with CAPITAL LETTERS and importance, and would always, for the rest of his life. The Big People were trying Mikey to see if they would take him away for good. 

William cried and cried and cried. Nothing made him feel better. The Big People that watched them every day tried being extra nice to him. Some of the big girls tried to mother him, but he didn’t like it. The big boys threatened to beat him up good if he didn’t shut up, but he didn’t care. He wanted Mikey back in The House where he belonged. Late that night, Mikey showed up, climbing through a window smelling like woodsmoke and covered in mud and scratches from the rosebush under the window.  
“I told them I wouldn’t leave without my brother,” he knelt beside the bunk and whispered to William in the dark, trying not to wake the others, “You are my brother, William. You are my brother and no one can prove otherwise. Repeat it after me. You have to say it or they’re going to take me away. I heard them say they just want one, but they won’t separate brothers. Come on, William, say it: We are brothers.”  
It was the first thing that William said outside his own head. He talked inside all the time. He just wasn’t interested in talking with anyone else. But he did tonight because it was so very important to Mikey.

“We aw bwovers,” William muttered brokenly, crystalline blue eyes wide and blinking at Mikey’s desperation.  
Mikey smiled bigger than any smile William had ever seen, a crazy, blood-black curl falling over his eyes. “That’s brilliant, Will. Can you try again?  
“We aw-“  
“-are,” corrected Mikey, encouragingly.  
“arrrr,” said William, “bwov-“  
“bRRRoTHers,” interrupted Mikey, staring at William’s mouth and exaggerating the word with his own to show William how to say it.  
“arrrr brrrahtherrrrrs,” finished William carefully, “We arrrr brahthers. Mikey is my brahther!” He added happily.  
“That’s right,” Mikey added with a glowing smile, “and no one can prove it isn’t true.” His smile turned sneaky and triumphant. “You are my brother, William, and that’s it. No one can split up brothers.” Looking back and forth with trepidation, Mikey carefully and quietly went back toward the windows, “Stay here, William, and don’t tell anyone you saw me. I’ll be back tomorrow. Remember: you are my brother.” Then, Mikey slipped out the way he came.

The next morning William found out there had been a fire in the office room where the Big People had to use a key on the door and a bunch of papers in boxes and things on the shelves were destroyed. Someone had been smoking and threw it in the trash. The nice lady with long brown hair had happened upon the fire and was able to put it out. Another lady was yelled at about the smoking and then William never saw her again. William remembered Mikey and the woodsmoke smell and said nothing.  
The Big People that took Mikey away brought him back that day and then went away. They did not come back. Mikey told them that he had a brother at The House and he wouldn’t leave him. There weren’t any papers for some of the boys and girls anymore, so no one could prove it. The Big People that helped them every day knew that William and Mikey didn’t come to The House at the same time, but they couldn’t say for sure they weren’t brothers. Mikey was ten years old (He held up both hands to William when he told him how old he was and helped William learn to count all his fingers) and the Big People (“adults,” Mikey said) had to trust that he knew if someone was his brother or not. It helped that the first thing that William ever said to any of them was, “Mikey is my brahther!”

By the time the Holmes showed up, Mikey was 13 and William was six and they had been brothers for so long that it was the truth.

Many things happened in the three years between becoming Mikey’s brother and meeting the Holmes. Many things which William didn’t like to think about. He remembers how the big boys would hurt him whenever they got a chance because he was little and strange. He remembers how it got worse when Mikey taught him how to tell things about people that they didn’t say about themselves. Mikey would find him and patch him up and beg him to “keep his mouth shut.” Mikey knew how to keep his mouth shut. But, William loved that he could read people. He liked to play “deductions” like Mikey taught him. To the big boys, it was just one more thing that made him weird, like how he read books that should be far too hard for him or how he would hum and rock and rock and rock sometimes when all the noise of the world was too much to take.  
He also remembers how Mikey used to smile and joke and ruffle his hair and hug him when he was sad. That stopped when Mikey started being friends with the man who cleaned the rooms at The House. More and more, Mikey would go off with the man. He’d bring back toys and fun stories and would tell William that the man called “Rutherford” would take them away from The House soon. They would all live on a farm in the countryside and run and be free. Mikey was away more and more, which is how the big boys had so many opportunities to hurt William. But, something was wrong with Mikey too. He started coming home and sitting and staring out the window. He wouldn’t talk when he was like this. One time when Mikey was sitting and staring, William noticed a bruise around Mikey’s wrist. He reached out before Mikey could stop him and pushed up his other sleeve, finding a matching bruise.  
William started to tell Mikey the things he could read on him, but Mikey shoved him hard so that William fell. Then, Mikey ran away. William didn’t see him for a whole day after that. Rutherford and Mikey showed up and invited William to go with them on an outing the next day. Mikey was smiling and acting like everything was fine, so William decided to pretend too.  
It was fun. The adults that took care of them smiled as Rutherford put them in his car and said he was taking them to town. Mikey got to sit in the front seat with Rutherford and William sat in the back. They ate ice cream! It was wonderful. William stuck his head out the window as they drove down the road. Rutherford took William aside and helped him pat down his hair and straighten his clothes after the ride while Mikey was in the bathroom. When Mikey came back and saw Rutherford helping William smooth out his shirt, he ran between them and started pummeling Rutherford with his fists and shouting at him, “Not him! Not him! Don’t!”  
By that time, Mikey was a tall 11-year-old – almost 12. Another adult helped Rutherford hold Mikey until he stopped punching and flailing. It was the first time of only a few that William ever saw Mikey break down and cry. Rutherford said not a word. He only pressed his lips together and put Mikey in the backseat with William to ride back to The House. Mikey sobbed uncontrollably and shouted at Rutherford, “Please take us away from The House! You can have me! Just not William! Please!” This seemed to make Rutherford angry. He still said nothing, but his face got more and more red as he sped back to The House.  
When they got out of the car at The House, Rutherford bent over to look them in the eyes and growled, “Not a word.” The three walked silently into The House. Rutherford smiled at the lady in the front and the boys walked away toward the sleeping room. The next day, the adults that took care of them were all talking about how Rutherford suddenly quit his job. They hired a plump, older woman to clean and neither Mikey nor William ever heard from Rutherford again.  
William found Mikey in the corner by his bed that night, crying. He wouldn’t tell him what was wrong, so William just sat with him while he cried. After that, Mikey would have nightmares sometimes, but he would never tell William what they were about. Mikey didn’t laugh much anymore though. He didn’t smile much either and he got upset when the adults tried to give him a hug. He’d dodge them and dash away and look at them sideways like he didn’t trust them. He also got very upset when anyone touched William, lashing out at them. Everyone learned to just leave the two of them alone.  
Then the Holmes showed up. They saw William and liked him. They came back day after day for a week. The man was kind and the woman had eyes just like William. That is why they decided to take William home with them for a little while to see if they’d all like it. After one of their visits in the play area, building with blocks with the man and reading a book with the lady, William decided he liked them very much. Mikey was in time-out somewhere because he had a big fit when the Holmes wanted to spend time with William alone. The adults that took care of them dragged him away, while William stood and watched – torn between his loyalty to Mikey and his desire to someday leave The House.

“I have a brother,” William managed to tell the lady when she brought up taking him home. He was proud of himself. He was talking a bit more as time went on.  
The lady blinked her shiny blue eyes at him, “You do?”  
William nodded, “Yes, and he can’t stay here if I go. You have to take him too. No one can split up brothers. That’s a rule,” he told her solemnly, just in case she didn’t know.  
Her mouth quirked, and she beckoned over her husband from where he was making a tower out of blocks to give his wife time alone with their potential future child.  
“William has a brother and won’t leave without him,” she told the man.  
William found out later that the adults that took care of them told the Holmes the suspected truth about the boys – that they were probably not related. However, the Holmes realized very quickly that they were indeed brothers, whether by blood or not.  
“Well, then we shall have to meet this boy and invite him to come with us as well. Where is he?” The man stood up and went to talk to the other adults.  
William was overjoyed. “Mikey is sad a lot,” he started to advise the nice lady that was taking them home, “He doesn’t like to be hugged and he kind of doesn’t like me to be hugged either. He gets really mad, but he’ll get better when he finds out how nice you are, honest! Sometimes he likes to sleep on the floor by my bed too, but that’s ok, I don’t mind.”  
The lady was nodding and wearing a serious expression.  
“I don’t think he trusts grown-up, adult people anymore,” William finished as the man came around the corner with a frowning Mikey.  
“We’re both going because you can’t split up brothers! That’s the rule, right Mikey?” William shouted and grinned.  
Mikey nodded curtly and stood right next to William, looking up at the adults who were taking them home, looking down at William, and then back at them again as though judging them.

Things went rather quickly after that. The two boys stayed with the Holmes for a week. The Holmes lived in the countryside and the boys ran and played and were free to make most of their own choices about what they did and where they went, within reason. The bright-eyed lady cooked them wonderful meals and the kind man read them book after book after book. They also found out that the lady liked to “do deductions” too and was very good at it. Going to the shops with her was fun not only because she let them pick out what to eat, but she would tell all about the things she’d read on people when they got back out to the car. She said it wasn’t polite to do it where people could hear.  
Things went smoothly, but they didn’t start out that way the first night.

William never found out what Mikey said to them to make them so upset or what he “offered” them that first night to cause the man to cry and the woman to shout on the phone at the people at The House, but he heard bits and pieces and found Mikey throwing up in the bathroom, crying uncontrollably. As he sat next to Mikey and rubbed his back, he decided he would never try to find out or understand. It seemed important somehow that he pretend he never could. All he said to Mikey was, “I think they’re nice people, Mikey. I think it is going to be ok.”

He remembers the look in Mikey’s red eyes as he turned to look at him, up and down, up and down, like he was doing deductions.  
“They haven’t…. He hasn’t…” Mikey couldn’t say it, but William knew what he meant. He tried to think of a way to say it so that Mikey would understand, but they could pretend they weren’t saying anything important. William knew by now that Mikey liked to pretend it wasn’t important.  
“No. I would tell you, Mikey, honest I would.” William swore solemnly.  
Mikey nodded and there was silence in the bathroom. They could hear the woman yelling on the phone down the hallway and in the other room. They pretended they couldn’t hear her words.  
“Close your eyes, William. Let’s pretend we’re far away,” Mikey said the familiar words and closed his eyes.  
William closed his eyes. “Pirates?”  
“Ok, pirates,” Mikey agreed.  
William imagined ships and the ocean and sword fights and daring do as Mikey’s voice weaved a tale of adventure. The shouting and the horrible things that had happened were disappeared and didn’t matter anymore.

Not too much later, the man found them both asleep on the bathroom floor, with their backs against the side of the bathtub, holding hands.  
William found out years and years later that he had picked up William and put him to bed. The man could not pick up Mikey and didn’t think it would be a good idea anyway after all he’d learned that night. He went and got the woman and she gently woke Mikey up and shuffled him off to bed, the man trailing behind. Mikey simply blinked warily at the two of them and dragged his blankets to the floor by William’s bed. The two adults let him be, and left the room as Mikey settled down in his nest of blankets. William woke up enough to see Mikey and to hear the muffled, upset crying woman outside the bedroom door before nodding back off to sleep.  
***************************************************************************  
Sherlock opened his eyes. His throat was dry and his voice was going hoarse.

He looked around the table at John, Lestrade, Molly, and Mycroft. He avoided looking at Culverton Smith. John, Lestrade, and Molly all looked horribly shocked and sad. John was gritting his teeth. Sherlock deduced he wanted to hurt the man who’d hurt Mycroft. Lestrade kept shutting his eyes, squeezing them shut, and then sniffling. He wanted to cry, but wanted to honor the dignity of the man sitting next to him. Mycroft was staring directly into Sherlock’s eyes, nearly motionless and seemingly in a trance. His eyes were suspiciously shiny, but he sat stiff-backed and as determined as always. He seemed to be at least partially lost in the past. Sherlock was relieved to see no blame in his eyes, no sense of betrayal. Molly looked like she was ready to lunge across the table and hug him and Mycroft both, her stare switching between the two of them and her hands clenched on the tabletop. No one commented on the fact that Sherlock told the story in third person as though it had happened to someone else. This was how he distanced himself. He would have distanced himself even further and deleted it all, but it would not delete. It would not delete and now Culverton Smith was using it against them all.

Sherlock then turned to Culverton Smith’s smug, beady eyed face.  
“May I-“ Sherlock tried, realized how scratchy he sounded and cleared his throat, “May I have some water?”  
“Of course, Mr. Holmes. Or should I say…William?” Smith’s smile grew as he pushed a button and requested some water for Sherlock. “Actually, make it tea. Tea all around I think,” he said and let go of the button.  
“Go on with the rest then, William,” Smith encouraged.  
“The rest is inconsequential and obvious,” Sherlock rasped, refusing to be baited by the name, and never breaking gaze with his brother. It worried him that Mycroft sat so still and so quietly, barely breathing and hardly blinking.  
Molly jumped suddenly and screamed, contorting and flailing. She screamed and screamed.  
“Stop it! Stop it! Alright, I’ll tell the rest!” Sherlock tried to jump up as everyone at the table began yelling and trying to break free to help Molly, but he was as bound to his chair as everyone else. The IV drip in Molly’s arm must have been stopped (Was it remotely controlled?) somehow then, because her screams tapered off to whimpers and then she fell silent, hunched forward on herself, breathing heavily.  
The tea arrived, pushed on a trolley by a prim woman in a smart suit. She seemed completely unflustered by a group of people tied to chairs around the conference table, IV drips attached to their arms. She served each person tea, milk and sugar if they wished, and unbound one arm so they could drink it.  
She then laid out a small plate in front of each of them with two biscuits each.  
“I’ll be back shortly to collect,” she said crisply to Smith, and then left.

 

Quick note: The truth is I don't know exactly where I want to go from here, but I got this much down and wanted to get it out there before series four began. I'll try to finish it before "The Lying Detective," if I can.


End file.
